Guwahati: 80 deaths, over 2L still displaced, and now, no place to cremate the deads.The Assam floods have not only destroyed the lives and livelihoods of thousands, but have also robbed the dead of a customary dignified farewell, much to the anguish and pain of their loved ones.With cremation grounds and ancestral homesteads in upper Assam submerged, families have been forced to travel miles in search of dry land or depend on the few elevated patches left in the compounds of relatives and neighbours to perform the last rites.In many parts of upper Assam, families traditionally cremate their loved ones within their home compounds and later build memorials there, instead of using public crematoriums. The floods have disrupted this age-old practice.The human cost of the deluge has been captured in a video from Elengmora village in Jorhat that recently went viral. It showed villagers carrying the body of 106-year-old Aitikan Tamuly on a raft made of banana trunks through floodwaters as they searched for dry land.Her last rites were eventually performed on a narrow strip beside a village pond that had not yet gone under water.On Friday, the family of 30-year-old Kushal Bora of Balidowa in Golaghat district’s Dergaon constituency had to take his body about 13km away to a relative’s home at Barpukhuripar in the Khumtai constituency for cremation.Kushal died of a stroke at Jorhat medical college and hospital on Thursday night. With his village inundated, his body could not be taken home. “After searching desperately for a highland, we found none. Finally, Kushal’s uncle who has settled in Khumtai offered space in his campus. We had to cross into another constituency just to perform the cremation. Such is our plight,” a family member said.Across several indigenous villages, similar scenes have unfolded as families struggle to perform funeral rites amid the devastation.Rajib Borah, a social worker and associate professor at Nazira College in Sivasagar, said, “The floods have turned even the final farewell into a heartbreaking ordeal across many indigenous villages where families traditionally perform cremations within their own compounds.”“People with compassionate hearts have shown a great example,” Borah said, adding that allowing another family to perform a cremation on one’s property was an extraordinary act of generosity and compassion.In Bahgorha, Sivasagar, the family of vegetable seller Mridul Dutta, who died while assisting flood rescue efforts, had to cremate him in their small tea garden.The family later managed to perform the Shraddha in its muddy courtyard on Thursday.
